The deal was setup and the owner was excited about visitors to his store. It's in a building with a variety of different businesses. The idea was to have them enter the store. He had a mini-promotion of his own with give-aways to ALL visitors.

1. The coordinates are near Lyndale Ave and the parking lot. A company truck in the lot tipped me off to look in the building.

2. Coordinates/info must have been leaked. People were in the lot last night. The custodian confronted them.

3. The business owner, expecting people in his store, never mentioned it to others. His landlord did not care for people checking out cars, etc.

4. A really cool guy, he's (edited for language) about the missed opportunity. He thinks the postcard (?) / sticker was picked up as trash by his custodian.

2. It must have been this morning.
4. The landlord must have removed the postcard.

a. I don't understand why the operator asked me to describe the card, if it had been found.
b. The owner was totally misled about what would take place.

I've been p and m -ing here, on the Quest blog and in e-mail. I don't fish, I'd probably not go to Montana State Fair, but I like a hunt. I was 'thrilled' to be second at the scout shop, and get my picture with the sticker. I had a real nice talk with the owner of Gotta Go Gotta Throw today, and I don't play Disc Golf.

This contest could be so good, but it seems like bad management to me. I'm not a sore loser. I know the past two winners. Congrats to them.

Hopefully future locations will not be surprised with a sticker on the dumpster, or a postcard in the bushes.

"Call it in even if you are not the first. Not to mention that there are prize winners beyond the first to call. Call first, call last, you may be a winner."_________________Tupperware doesn't belong in the kitchen!

Thank you. Your comments are valued. If we may review a few of your
comments - We do not believe any of the caches to have been hacked and
have safe guarded our website to prevent such activity.

The locations have been contacted and asked where they would prefer it
be placed. We are finding that sometimes owners discussed locations
with the cache team without letting managers know; likewise, managers
are posting without letting employees know.

Yesterday's cache was removed by a neighboring business. The business
owner was upset that the parking lot was filling up with cachers.

The call center cannot identify the winner on the call due to the fact
that there are multiple lines coming in to allow for simultaneous
callers. Once the call ends, a database logs the call start time. This
is how the winner is selected. Any calls prior to 9:00 are invalid, as
are calls that identify the picture incorrectly.

The prizes for non-first daily callers are not Travel Planners. They
will be gift certificates for Minneapolis/St. Paul businesses.

We greatly appreciate that you have taken the time to talk with the
partner location business. I have heard many reports that they are very
happy to hear from the cachers and that you are expressing how much you
are enjoying the event and appreciate their involvement.

Please feel free to contact us with any comments and best of luck.
Montana GPS Quest Team

Thank you. Your comments are valued. If we may review a few of your
comments - We do not believe any of the caches to have been hacked and
have safe guarded our website to prevent such activity.

Thats an SOP response. I'd bet you if they "safe guarded" anything, all they did was maybe check some settings, nothing more.

King Boreas wrote:

The prizes for non-first daily callers are not Travel Planners. They
will be gift certificates for Minneapolis/St. Paul businesses.

Hmm... So why haven't they mentioned that to other callers while they have em on the line? Something like "You weren't the 1st finder, BUT we do have a gift certificate for such and such a place"

Don't get me wrong either, I'm always greatful to get another contest in town, and since this is their first run problems do come up. Still, I hope if other organizations run contests that they would learn from these ones (or if montana runs this again in the future that it'll be better).

I still hold up my arguement though that minneapolis is NOT the "Twin Cities". Seems a lot of contests from other states/areas seem to get that confused.

Don't get me wrong either, I'm always greatful to get another contest in town, and since this is their first run problems do come up. Still, I hope if other organizations run contests that they would learn from these ones (or if montana runs this again in the future that it'll be better).

My thought is that they should have had a bit of a test run in a smaller community, possibly Idaho or South Dakota before they put on this promotion... sort of a dress rehearsal. I bet they never run one here again and that is a shame.
The concept is good, but it should be run more like that contest that Magellan had where the find was an actual GPS hunt and there was one clear winner and several clear runner-ups.

Oh well.... we'll still go thru and stop in Montana on our way to various spots out west... still a wonderful state!! (not as wonderful as WY, but then what could be??? )

KC0GRN wrote:

I still hold up my arguement though that minneapolis is NOT the "Twin Cities". Seems a lot of contests from other states/areas seem to get that confused.

I've been through Montana a few times on train. Glacier Park is beautiful, and there've been a few times I've been tempted to take a trip just to go there, just haven't yet. But honestly, that's about as much of Montana as I've thought of visiting. Except to find a cache or two of course.